Dreaming Through the Twilight
by msmoocow
Summary: Ariana: like a beautiful melody.


_A/N: A million thank yous to my friends__**shiiki**__,__**Auds**__, and__**queenb23**__for helping me out. Their input and suggestions were brilliant. 3_

_Written for the__**femgenficathon**__on LiveJournal, prompt 110: "The hardest times for me were not when people challenged what I said, but when I felt my voice was not heard." - Carol Gilligan_

I shall not see the shadows,  
I shall not feel the rain;  
I shall not hear the nightingale  
Sing on as if in pain.  
And dreaming through the twilight  
That doth not rise nor set,  
Haply I may remember,  
And haply may forget.

-_from_"_Song_"_by Christina Rossetti_

_**...**_

Falling, face-first, into the shadows.

There is no more fear for Ariana welcomes Death, lets him wrap his cunning arms around her waist and pull her down — _or is it up?_ — all the way, through the cloudy mist she's seen so often in her dreams.

She runs into Daddy's arms first, spotting him instantly and squealing with mad delight. He laughs too, shouting happily and twirling her round before setting her down and resting his hands on her shoulders. A contented sigh and he lets her go.

Mummy is next, not as exuberant but no less thrilled. Her mouth is prim, but her eyes are bright, brimming with affection. There is no embrace, but a warm hand grazes Ariana's cheek.

Further down, she makes out three dim forms in the distance, and she is irresistibly drawn closer. Instinctively she realises it's them, the boys — _they called them boys, but they were men, really_ — that did it. She glides closer still, and they're not men at all — they are grotesque, misshapen, inhuman things. They cringe and shrink away from her, lamely, as if her touch will burn.

Curiosity strikes and she strokes one with the pad of her thumb — it gives a hoarse, agonising wail – and its malformed body crumbles away into dust. In its place are those hands, those eyes, that mouth. She repeats the gesture once, twice more and they all stand upright, naked and ashamed.

No fear, only forgiveness, fragile as ash in her palm.

She wades on through the rest of the misty world with its endless plain, spanning forever, knowing that there is more that she must do, more with whom she must meet…more whom she must forgive.

Finally, she sees him: the lone figure, crumpled and weeping, but undeniably human. Her feet pick up pace, trotting and then running as fast as she can to kneel beside him. She lays a steady hand on his shoulder as she whispers soothingly, comforting him — finally, _finally_ he listens, clutching her hand like a lifeline.

He raises his head from his knees. Tears still streaming down his mournful, wrinkled face, he licks the salt from his lips and speaks.

"They need your help."

_**...**_

Albus has packed her bags for her (everything is in the wrong place, but he doesn't care at all) and is speaking to her in a bored, irritated tone. She can understand him perfectly well;, she wants to say that there's no need to treat her like a child. She knows things he doesn't and she tells him so, indignant words coming out in noiseless whines.

She stamps her foot, that terrible, familiar glow throbbing through her body, limbs tingling —

— _and everything's cold again_.

He's been here before, cooing sweet words that drip with disguised malevolence. All she can see are his too-bright teeth gleaming with her vulnerable reflection. This time, like interlocking puzzle pieces, the body parts finally come together. She sees the man for what he is, whole and unmarked by ill luck.

He'll get what he wants.

The sinister nightmares flash quickly before her — _are they dreams or are they real?_ — and she pleads with the demon that's come to fetch her away.

_Don't — it's me, take me — I'm the dirty one, just please, leave my brothers_…

Her words are futile; one minute she's begging the dark to take her and the next she knows Aberforth is about to die.

_The darkness will not claim them_, she vows. This vision will not come to pass; she is determined, ready to alter the terrible course she has already known.

_Flash!_ White, blue, violet, red — the beams dance violently around her. Aberforth screams with pain. An unseen hand rises and falls, producing an angry shaft of green.

She steps into the light, admiring the brilliance, its colour.

The colours are gone, replaced by solid black.

_**...**_

Mummy doesn't hear her when she shouts. They're nothing but foolish tantrums, Mummy says, and try as she might, Ariana can't get her to listen. It's so frustrating, with nobody to talk to about the terrible things she knows.

Mummy's end frightens her the most.

It will all be her fault. She doesn't know exactly why, or how. All she can do is warn her, warn everybody before it's too late.

_Go away_, she sobs. _Leave me alone._

She tries her hardest to make Mummy recognise the danger she's in — oh, why can't anybody see what she sees? — but Mummy only grows angrier.

For days — _months, weeks, years?_ — Ariana begs her to take heed of her warnings. Sometimes the desperation becomes unbearably strong and she destroys her mother's beloved things. Those are the times Mummy slaps her, palm quick as her temper leaving swollen markings on Ariana's face. Mummy runs away then, flinging her fists to her own mouth and gasping.

_It doesn't matter_, Ariana says, lips forming the shape of a round, smooth O. Can't Mummy see? _Things_ don't matter, her hot temper means nothing — Ariana must leave, for everyone's sake.

Sooner or later, everything snaps.

Ariana is tugging Mummy away from the kettle, away from the flowered porcelain teapot and pushing her towards the door. If she can't tell her, she'll show her. Mummy struggles though, and the push and pull are too overwhelming. Ariana tries to shout, summoning all the strength she has, when the delicate porcelain teapot explodes.

Mummy wails, her expression anguished. Her favourite teapot (a gift from a long-dead relative, Ariana dimly recalls) is broken.

Ariana's fury escalates. Mummy is crying over a broken teapot, when her own daughter is a danger to them all.

_What does it matter, in the end? I'm going to kill you, and Aberforth, and Albus and nobody can stop me._

She beats at her mother's shuddering back with weak fists, trying frantically to convey her warning. Faster and faster her fists fly but she no longer strikes her mother; it is her own breast she beats, thumping hard on the flesh — faster still, her hands are a pink blur — they emit a faint glow, brightening in intensity, and then —

The fragmented shards of the teapot wink, gleaming in a patch of afternoon light on the stone floor. Easy enough to mend.

Mummy is gone forever.

_**...**_

His hair is yellow. The disembodied eyes are alight, looking her up and down with greed, and the beady black centres gleam with a mad sort of glee as they swallow her dreams whole. That's all she knows of him, this dismembered, monstrous man. Sometimes the dark soulless eyes shift to red, shrinking into slits, but evil has but one face.

Ariana can see it, vivid as fire, haunting her thoughts Events fuse together in one terrible catastrophic cloud (_as most tragedies do — they've only just begun_). She tries to warn Aberforth, clutching and pawing at his elbow until he fixes her with a patient, gentle grin.

_Something's coming_, she warns. She says it with her mouth, but they never listen. She tries to say it with her hands, the fear vibrating through her fingers and making them tremble. Her impatience shatters Mummy's favourite vase.

A scolding, but she can't be bothered with contrition. There are more important things at stake, can't he understand?

_Something's coming_, she finally manages to say with her eyes, but by then he's lost interest. With an expression that holds everything Ariana can ever hope to know about love, he pats her head once and turns to leave.

She calls out silently to his retreating figure.

_He'll get you, too_.

_**...**_

When Daddy goes away, he takes the laughter with him.

She remembers how he used to bounce her on his knee, tugging playfully at her hair and smelling of fresh earth and tobacco.

Right after, he doesn't touch her. He flinches upon her entrance, at her appearance as she slips through the front door. Her pretty dress is nothing more than muddy rags; a small trickle of crimson, still warm from her insides, trickles down one pale bare leg. His eyes widen big as saucers then narrow quickly. The look on his face is frightening. She screams, soundlessly, lips unmoving.

_Fix it_, she implores. _Fix it, before it's too late_.

He doesn't, though. He stands and walks away, as if he can't even bear the sight of her (and why should he; she's so dirty), and it is Mummy who tends to her with sad eyes and a tight mouth, washing away the mud, erasing the pain but not the filth that persists.

Daddy leaves, returning — _hours? days? weeks later?_ — to bring her close, lifting her up and letting her fling her arms around his shoulders like a small frightened animal. He smells like death.

He holds her against his chest, and she breathes him in. Breathes him in until the shadow-men come, until the cold approaches, breathes him in until the cold carries her away and she sees them again with their cold eyes and cruel hands (she is so cold, _so cold_), breathes him in until the cold lifts like daybreak during a winter storm. Daddy is gone, nothing left but a smudge of red by the door and his scent lingering, like an omen.

_**...**_

Hands —

..._freak, why can't you show us more_...

— everywhere, all over, touching, grabbing, claiming —

..._I'll make you_...

— under, _oh no not there_, and up, so far up —

..._can't you talk, you pretty thing_...

— inside, pulling hair, grunting, greedy mouth —

..._not so brave now are you_...

— _no, please don't_, ripping cloth, burning, _hurts so bad_ —

..._come on, smile big for me, open wide_...

She is lost.

_**...**_

There is comfort in looking back, after a lifetime of looking forward. And there is pleasure in silence. After years of shouting with nobody to hear, she can now listen patiently to the stories that other people tell.

Aberforth talks to her often, treating her like more of a person than he ever did while she was alive. She is content to watch him from above the fireplace, watching him scrub floors and tend goats with the same loving touch he once reserved for her.

The other side is just as interesting. They don't always notice her, and she doesn't always see them. Sometimes they come to hide things, or to hide from people. Other times, they come to be alone. She watches them, unnoticed, peering from behind the dusty glass.

One day, someone — not quite a boy, but not a _man_, either — comes to rest. His face is bloody and bruised; one eye has swelled up like a balloon, and his cheek drips onto the spotless rug under his feet. Half-mad with delirium (_and is it hunger? —_she hears his stomach growl) and exhaustion, he collapses, a soft pink armchair appearing out of nowhere to cushion his fall.

She lifts her head and peers shyly from behind the gilt frame. He spies the slight movement.

"Hello there," he says. His voice is weary, though kind.

She blinks. _You look like you've been through a lot._ He stares curiously. _I've been through a lot, too._

"Yeah?" The uninjured side of his mouth lifts slightly. "Tell me about it."


End file.
